Strong performances by its scar treatment, eye health and multivitamin brands helped international healthcare group Alliance Pharma overcome weaker sales of some of its other products last year.
The Chippenham-headquartered firm, which owns a portfolio of products ranging menopause relief to anti-dandruff shampoo, said the resulting 1% drop in revenue did not reflect its mid-long term growth ambitions.
Its full-year trading update was published today ahead of Alliance’s acquisition by DBAY, its biggest shareholder, which pounced with a £350m takeover bid three weeks ago.
The offer has been recommended by Alliance’s directors and now proceeding through the usual acquisition timetable, the firm said today.
Alliance said while revenues declined in some of its brands in the 12 months to 31 December, there had been strong performance from its scar treatment Kelo-Cote, eye health supplement MacuShield, eczema and dry skin cream Hydromol and multivitamin and mineral supplement Forceval.
Kelo-Cote’s franchise revenues grew by 6% to £65.4m in-line with previous guidance of mid-single digit revenue growth, it said, but warned that while it remained committed to moving to smaller, more regular orders in China, this was taking longer than anticipated.
Revenues from its anti-dandruff shampoo Nizoral declined 21% due to the timing of distributor orders while sales of Amberen, a menopause relief, fell by 7% CER to £10.1m.
Forceval delivered another solid performance with revenues up 20% to £7.9m and sales of Hydromol climbed by 14% CER to £10.3m.
Other prescription medicine revenues showed strong recovery as previously out-of-stock products became available, Alliance added.
Alliance Chief Executive Officer Nick Sedgwick, who joined in May last year from UK hygiene, health and nutrition brands group Reckitt, said he was pleased last year’s performance had been in line with expectations.
“Whilst we have much to do as we work on our transformation plans, I am confident that our strong portfolio of clinically differentiated brands will deliver predictable organic revenue growth over the mid-long term," he added.
Alliance, which employs around 285 people across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region, was last year rocked by a series of problems, including leadership changes and delays in publishing its 2023 full-year financial results, triggering a sharp fall in its share price.
Isle of Man-based DBAY Advisors, which already owns a 27.9% stake in Alliance, has built up a portfolio of business since it was launched in 2008, including baked food group Finsbury, which it acquired in October 2023.
Its other acquisitions and investments over the past few years have also been in IT and software businesses.
DBAY said it had “followed Alliance's story” for several years and began acquiring Alliance shares just over two years ago. It first approached the firm last May.
At the time of its bid it said it supported Alliance's leadership team and believes in the firm's future prospects but considered it needed to “implement a range of operational and strategic initiatives, in conjunction with a period of accelerated investment and selective acquisitions of complementary products, in order to fulfil the growth potential of the business”.
It also said it had become apparent that Alliance, which has been listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market for nearly 20 years, “needed time away from the public market to allow it to fully deliver these initiatives in a reasonable timeframe”.